24 Nov 2008

Here are a few tips to increase your gaming pleasure I use most of these :P

Wound markers - don't use dice, use MMs, skittles, smarties, fruit pastels. Hero takes a wound oh well get a sweet-You could also do this for every model now don't you regret your not Orks or IG

The winner is! - put a reward up for the winner it doesn't need to be anything big, some spare wound markers for instance :P or free drinks later in da pub

Imiagination - Make up your own super monsters (que rending pony) and make your opponent put an entire army against it, do it like a Zelda boss of something where you need to do destroy different parts of it before it explodes into a large amount of molten plastic and you collect the heart container from... wait forget that last bit

Vary it - always playing against the same army try swapping, it can be good fun... or not...

Turn to the dark side - I hate it when the game ends on turn 5 with an epic clash lined up for the following turn (this works best with objective levels) just keep playing even after the winner is decided the last parts of the game are normally the most fun, play to the end!

23 Nov 2008

I have had an idea (que lightbulb) using wire I'm going to make runes out of the wire and suspend them in midair in-front of my farseer. So i want to pose/convert my farseer to make it look like s/he is writing them with some physic power (or something like that) I'm yet to work out how to suspend it (i might just use thinner wire or just not paint it)

Space marines:With: Space marines have access to a lot of special characters use them,Against: Plasma and power weapons are you're friends

Orks:With: Don't bother shooting with da boyz just runAgainst: Template weapons and Hi strength, low AP with lot's of shots, cause a moral tests, Use there own units for cover saves (they get in the way of each-other a lot)

Eldar:With: Farseers rule autraches are rubbish in comparison, Use small-ish (5) jetbike squads to capture/contest objectives on the last turn, Use guardians to look after you're own objective and use the Support platform to you're advanage and DOOOOOOOM!!! (Muhahahah!)Against: Decent AP, low-ish strenght weapons. Prioritise you're targets, especially howling banshees in transports

Imperial guard:With: Use as many blast weapons as possible, blast weapons don't miss!Against: Stay out of 12" wherever possible, Use weapons with a range that beats lasguns. Use weapons with as many shots as possible

Tau:With: Detach the gun drones from vehicles, use pinning weapons to keep the enemy at arm's length, use kroot to pester the enemy, don't be careless with battlesuits they're not all that toughAgainst: Stay out of 12" until assualting, use fast moving troops (assualt marines) to tie up the units and then move the rank-and-file units in

21 Nov 2008

Right so you know i am going to start an eldar army so i've decided the model i'm going to enter into the competition:An eldar farseer

I'm going to mount it on a 40mm base instead of a 25mm1: so i can add a bit more detail to it2: it makes the model stand out more which is what you want on a HQ choice (I do it with all my HQs)

I'm yet to decide on a color scheme properly but i feel it will be quite dark with silver and a rich deep red cloak (Edit: I had originally posted clock :P ) I'm still not entirely sure but i want to theme my army around the nights sky so it will be nice to pick out bits of detail with silver on black.That's the plan anyway... I will post my failures... i mean progress as i go along (although I may not get the model for a while i can start the base (i have a lot of spare 40mm bases from cavalry model in LOTR (Don't ask (here's another bracket :P ))))

While a lot of people swear by priming with chaos black (well black) It's actually a much better idea to prime white. If you stop and think about it you can put dark colors on to white perfectly but you can't put light colors onto black. It usually ends up becoming streaky and you have to do several layers to get it looking good and especially painting on white as the painting corps did a tutorial on painting white over black you have to gradually layer it up (I'm not slagging off the tutorial or anything for bit of detail like terminator markings it looks even better than just white) whilst it's easy painting it onto a lighter (well lightest) color.

So really unless your model is actually black (I also recommend putting purity seal or something equivalent over black to make it look... better) try priming it white

17 Nov 2008

Right i hope to make this a weekly thing. It's a Monday (auto bad-mood) so i thought I'd have a random rant about something and then listen to the responses i get.

Transfers.How i hate them. It's the only easy/practical way to put on chapter markings, company markings est. and GW couldn't really have done a worse job of them.

1. There is very little 'space' between each of the transfers so even if you do avoid cutting the next one along you have very little room to hold the cut-out by and usually end up dropping them.

2. Wonky, there is absolute no-way of getting them straight, you could spend ages trying and it's not gonna happen. You can try moving it with your finger but it'll normally stick to your finger or rip speaking of ripping...

3. They rip so easily some of them, sometimes even before they're off the paper stuff (which sticks to the desk or whatever you leave it on whilst applying the transfer) i spent ages putting the large ultramarine transfer on my black reach dread only to have it rip after trying ages to get it straight. Also I wish they would include a spare of every one. If you ruin one for a squad of say, marines and then you either have to paint it on your self or buy a new transfer sheet.

I hope this has given you something to get angry about... wait that didn't sound right...

15 Nov 2008

Following the round table discussion on the units we never leave home without I thought I'd share some war stories about my devastators and their uncanny scatter rolls:

There is a friend at my club who plays blood angles and he has a 'super unit' of assault marines in one round of fire i managed to reduce the unit to a smoldering ash, apart from the captain who was saved by his storm shield but he failed his morale test and promptly left the battle.

I magnetize most of my special weapons troops (2 per tactial squad ect.) so that i can mix and match my weapons depending on which army i'm against (multi meltas aren't all that great against an ork horde) so recently i was playing an amoured company so i equiped missles, meltas that kinda thing, i managed to pop both of their land raiders and a rhino (which exploded badly damaging the marines hiding behind it (and in it))

But my best shot ever was when I was playing against Imperial guard (it was someone from my club and we were doing a bit of hobby shopping (the lovley new land raider for me)) in a GW and my plasma cannon shot scattered badly from the heavy weapon crews i was aiming for but landed on their command squad instead! I caused enough damage to force the unit to make a morale test... which they failed (douple six ouch) and the commisar stept up and executed his own commander! That was one of the few occasions i won against adam's Imperial guard and what an ironic way to take victory.

13 Nov 2008

Okay first things first. This is not a tutorial to make amazing pieces of scenery with the most expensive materials you can find this is a really quick, easy and cheap way to make a ruin and all you will need is:Scissors or a crafting knifeA reasonable amount of thick cardboardA small amount of thin cardboardSome old spruesGlueClippersA Pen

Step one:Easy cut out a square or rectangle out of the thicker cardboard

Step 2:Mark a jagged line through the middle connecting two opposite corners and cut them out

Step 3: Cut out a small piece of thin card to look a bit like old wood (Or use thick to make a ruined piece of floor) and glue these three pieces together

Step 4: Place the whole thing on a sheet of cardboard and draw round is smoothly leaving room around the edges then cut this out and stick the ruin to it

Step 5: Using more of the thin card cut out small rectangles (To represent brickwork) and stick these however you like onto the ruin

Step 6: Using a pair of clippers cleave up a couple of old sprues and stick it to the base around the ruin

Step 7: Using a pen you can add bullet holes by stabbing the cardboard.

Finished! (apart from the lack of paint) you can add any extra details in that you want (corpses, banners ect.)Some badly painted marines (WIP) defend themselves in a ruin

Oh and here's one I made earlier :P

You can also make smaller bits of terrain using sprue bits

Hope this has been useful. I may post a painting guide for it as well... don't hold your breath though.

9 Nov 2008

I've been reading up a bit on the Ulthwé fluff and it turns out they don't include many aspect warriors (Spare Dire Avengers) which isn't ideal if you want to base your army around dark reapers and banshees. So, I think I may invent my own craftworld (That Phoenix Lord Arsurmen retrieved from the midst of a warpstorm) and so I have a focus to write some fluff on (and i get to make my own colour scheme which I also just did with a tactial squad) so first things first... any suggestions of names anyone? (keeping in mind the banshees and reapers)Edit: here's the runes (I actually think their elvish but what the difference really) I tried inserting it into the post but it was too big (the actual size not the file size)

8 Nov 2008

Do you like the picture of the aspect portal there or shall i revert it?Edit: Right I've decided to not include it (here's a picture if you missed the brief time it was up(Pssst it's an aspect portal from Dawn of War) If anyone can come up with something better to put there or to use as my avatar please post a suggestion

So... I'm trying to get Disqus to work so this is really just a test...but i also have a question:When you put in a user name it asks you to begin and end with a number but no-one has any numbers on the comments posted does it ignore these numbers or what?Edit: just found it (seriously is it just me or is their website so slow)

6 Nov 2008

4 Nov 2008

Right a lot of people were very annoyed or very pleased about the new 'run' rule in 5edWhilst close combat armies (Orks, Tyranids) have had a great bonus able to potentially cover twice as much ground as they used to.But the more shooty armies (Tau, Imperial Guard) have had a huge blow losing out on an extra turn or two of shooting and in close combat (Tau especially) they get massacred.

The annoyance has got to a lot of people to the degree that they'll get a couple of throw away units (Heck I've even seen tactical squads all geared up with chain swords and bolt guns) to go and intercept them on the way... although this doesn't work either as you can't shoot at the enemy whilst there in combat so I wanted to start a little debate about countering the run or using it to your advantage (Post ideas as comments)

2 Nov 2008

Right, so a lot of you who go into GW have seen the 40K scenery (The imperial sector stuff) if anyone has bought any could you please take a picture of the sprues (with something there for scale) so that i might attempt to remake it without having to buy the expensive plastic kit. I will make printable templates if i am succsessful for readers to download and make their own.

Right so if you look on ++FROM THE WARP ++ (seriously whats with the +s?) you'll know that this months 'challenge' for the FtW blogger group is to create your own scenario to go into a community scenario pack... thing...Well i sped ahead with mine doing literally as soon as I got it (5 minute challenges come on Ron!) I won't reveal what it's about but it's done... hooray!

1 Nov 2008

Right some of you may be wandering why my blog is called 'The Aspect Portal' some of you may recognize this from Dawn of War (the Eldar building that produces infantry units) This is because I'm going to start a new army (Eldar wow! what a great guess) from the craftworld Ulthwé. I have chosen this as i love the color scheme and I hope to base my army mainly around howling banshees and dark reapers (which fit into the color scheme well) I've been wanting to do this for a while now and haven't got round to it, I hope to start around January/February (Christmas is too expensive) and will write guides on how i paint them; battle reports on how i play them and will be making some very eldar scenery (some of which will be adapted from dawn of war buildings) so sit tight until then. (If you too are looking to start a new eldar army then this web page (actually this site has all the old GW articals on it some of which have been lost since the new one has been introduced) is great for choosing a craftworld)